The theologian Paul Tillich makes a subtle distinction between 'loneliness', which expresses the pain of being alone, and 'solitude', which expresses the glory of being alone. Both states seem to be intrinsic to human existence.

As social animals, wemay have a low threshold for the pain of being alone. "But solitude is also the profoundest fact of the human condition," says the Nobel laureate poet Octavio Paz in his Labyrinths of Solitude, "Man is the only being who knows he is alone and only one who seeks out another."

'Another' happens to be someone far away, who looks like a street toughie. What if he really were to be a rocket scientist, quaking with misgivings about your hood-wrapped columnist? Instead of finding out, we hurry back to the car where we can continue our meditation about the prospect of turning loneliness into 'sweet' solitude.

Cultivating self-compassion is one of the ways of blunting the pain of loneliness. But beware of self-pity. It may drown you in the quicksand of obsessive self-centredness. Spare a thought for others beset with similar problems.

You aren't the only one who's the lonely one! There is also a darker downside to this cognitive transformation: as the Bhagavad Gita warns, the self who's the best friend of the self can also become its worst enemy - atmeva ripuratmana - if you aren't mindful.

Of course you aren't helpless. Instead of berating yourself, resolutely turn your self into your best friend; for he who becomes his own soul-brother - atmeva atmano bandhu - can never be lonely.